A great military officer qualification test question

Although Malcolm Gladwell claims in his latest New Yorker article that the Marines aren't much interested in whom they select to be a Marine, the reality is that the military has been intensively testing applicants since 1917.

Sci-fi novelist Jerry Pournelle passes along this item he recalls from the Army Officer Candidate School test he passed to become a teenage artillery officer during some of the worst fighting of the Korean War against Mao's million Chinese "volunteers."

"Q. You are in charge of a detail of 11 men and a sergeant. There is a 25 foot flagpole lying on the sandy, brush-covered ground. You are to erect the pole. What is your first order?"

I'll put the answer here so you have time to think about it.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer